


Tortoiseshell

by Transistance



Series: Butterflies [3]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Arguing, Betrayal, Murder, Past Violence, Relationship Problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 07:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7425883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transistance/pseuds/Transistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grell is revealed to be the Ripper: a monster, a murderer, unforgivable. Camouflaged in her partnership with Red she has committed unspeakable atrocities and now shows no remorse - and it's the latter that William cannot ignore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tortoiseshell

“For God's sake, Will, my life _doesn't revolve around you_!”

“This isn't about me – do you even understand what you've done? There is genuine discussion of having you killed for this!”

“Well _let them!_ ” she screeches, suddenly at the bars, eyes huge and teeth bared in a snarl. “Let them kill me! Let them damn me, finally accept that I'm not _stable_ enough to be here amongst you _civilised_ bastards!”

Grell looks like some sort of wild animal in the half-light; some visceral savage, all fangs and flaming eyes. Both hands throttle the bars of her cell, and she's still spattered in blood – it's speckled across her face, across her glasses, clumping in her hair. Red for the woman Red who she had torn apart in a fit of what William can only assume to have been jealousy. Now she's livid, more angry than he has ever seen her, but all desire to calm her is lost now because he's furious too.

“You would deserve it!” he roars, slamming his hand above hers with enough force that her prison shakes. “That and twice that for this – depravity, this irredeemable spate of atrocities that you spent _two years_ –”

“Two years in which you noticed _nothing_!” Her cry cuts him off, hideously jarring. “Two bloody _years_ , William, every day of which I stood before you and held my stained hands out for judgement – every day! Every day in which I came to you and we held one another and talked, and you told me how _dreadful_ the Ripper case was and scolded me for laughing – never once did it cross your mind to ask where my empathy had fled to, never once thought to wonder why my _heart_ was so closed! I told you who I was _over_ and _over_ again, gave you the power to stop my wrath with a word, but all you did was confide in me that the brutality of my own hand repelled you! Who did you think I was? Who–”

“I thought that you were better than this! I thought that you were trustworthy, had some basic human respect for lives-”

“ _We're not human!_ List _en_ to yourself! Respect be damned, mothers that kill their own _children_ should be put to death by _state_ – my actions were _right!_ Just because _you_ can sit up there in your glass façade and sneer down at the world from the safety of your apathy – _I cannot!_ You don't _care_ , Will, you've never cared, and whatever the rest may say I am far less a monster than you for-”

She's still shrieking her conviction even as he slams the door of the room, retreats down the corridor in strides given pace by the repugnance and abhorrence that are broiling in his insides. It's a few minutes before his head stops ringing with her bile; a lot longer before he abruptly remembers to start breathing again.

(It takes weeks for her screaming to die out of his dreams.)

Betrayal tastes wrong after almost a century of absolute trust. It _isn't_ that she has murdered people, not really; vigilante killing sprees are embarrassingly common amongst their kind, and although most are reined in more quickly than Grell's they're never harshly punished – so long as they don't become a habit. She could have cut down a dozen more women cleanly and William would have been able to, if not _understand_ , at least forgive her the transgression. Better reapers than Grell Sutcliff have fallen prey to the temptation of taking judgement into their own hands rather than waiting for natural deaths. But no sense of morality - unhinged or otherwise - leads to that level of mutilation and torture. William can still see that slewed nightmare grin that she'd worn wide across her face, the wild, cruel excitement in her eyes, anticipation before kills palpable even through the gauze of a record. Dallas had hesitated – more than once. Grell had urged her on.

Nobody has ever had a scythe so inappropriate for the job as that; nobody has ever misused their ability to hide themselves in plain view. Nobody has sated bloodlust to that extent and claimed it justifiable. Her actions have been barbaric, twisted; against everything that reapers are supposed to embody. It's wrong, wrong, all wrong. For someone so close to become suddenly a stranger is crippling, and suddenly everyone else is shadowed by doubt too.

He signs the proposal that she spend a month in Corrections and Rehabilitation as soon as it crosses his desk, uncertain as to whether he's relieved or put out by such a light sentencing. She has committed a lifetime's worth of sin but only a bare minimum of actual illegalities – so it's likely that she'll be reinstated with little fuss and expected to return to her previous impressive performance. Expected to sit behind the same desk that she has always occupied, with the same schedule and the same peers and William, too, expected to treat her exactly as he had before she made her instability evident. Whether he'll be able to do so he isn't yet certain.

When exactly had she changed?

He can't find a precise moment to pin the blame upon – and doubts that even if he laid his own soul out for view and relived it second by second he would be able to find the knock that had caused the underlying flaw. Or is it new at all? She had been violent before she had loved him – but that was a long time ago, and rooted in self-hatred and repression. The date that she swooped down upon Dallas was nothing special; almost certainly unplanned. Had it been entirely opportunistic, then? A violation of rights rooted purely in _boredom_ , or too much anger's careful restraint suddenly ripping free, or a fancy taken to the aesthetic of that mortal woman? There's no answers to be had, only speculation – which convolutes any truth, ballooning it out until all original meaning is obscured. Some of the speculation is based on Grell herself, her current state of mind – he isn't the only one who had visited her in that dingy little dungeon cell, and everybody knows that she's in Corrections now – but most of it is drawn from the rather more subjective evidence presented in the tainted reels of the Madam Red.

Red's record has been passed around the office like a cheap whore itself; nobody in Management hasn't watched it through. Most of it is irrelevant: after all, the majority of her life matters nothing at all. It is only important – alongside the last hours of the records of her victims' – to determine the depth of Grell's misconduct, and the only word that William can find to describe her actions is _sick_.

Actually, that's not true. The animalistic pleasure of clawing a woman's innards out with her hands, nails digging into scarlet flesh – _grotesque_. The cruel play-baiting of the victim, painting her, making her appearance mock her profession and her heart hope for some last minute saviour to appear even as the knives were produced, mulled over, driven in – _remorseless_.The expression of yearning across her even as her fingers moved unconsciously, eyes on Red's blades – _wanton_.

The way that Grell had _gazed_ at Dallas leaves no room for ambiguities in how she felt, no need to question anyone about whether she had loved the Madam. That intensity of emotion hadn't wavered throughout their time together – had seemed a resolute safety net right up until the instant at which Grell had driven her scythe through the woman's chest, still burning with that same passion. Red had been slain by her closest ally, her only confidant, and William finds himself wondering exactly what trigger will give Grell cause to do the same to him.

Not simple physical violence, if the way that he took her in is anything to judge on. He'd been far rougher than had been necessary, even after determining that there had been no immediate danger of her so much as even bad-mouthing him – even after he'd realised that she wanted to be dragged back. She hadn't fought back, hadn't made a single motion to prevent him from beating her. What was that – guilt? Simple fatigue? Grell had just lay there and let herself be battered, bruised, _broken_ under his feet after having put so much effort into attacking the demon. She'd been limp in the aftermath, as he had dragged her out of the alley and into the Dispatch; hadn't even managed to speak up to the rest of their constituency as those who'd been in the office that late at night had stared down at her, stared up at William, and the murmurings and shocked whispers had started. William had stared straight ahead, indulged no-one; hadn't spoken or met eyes or truly been aware of his surroundings at all until he'd brought her before his own superior, who had sworn violently and decreed her initial incarceration. It had been harrowing; shameful. He has never been ashamed of her before.

He's ashamed of having been close to her; ashamed that everyone in the dispatch knows that they had a relationship, ashamed that he is associated with her in any way at all. He's ashamed that he didn't do anything to stop her.

He's ashamed that he misses her already.

Disappointment is actually a new feeling, deep-seated and cloying. Life-long pessimism has served William well enough that he rarely expects the best from situations or people, and so is rarely let down – only one individual has ever managed to move up in his esteem and remain there. Had, now. 

He barely speaks two words to her during her probation period – but that's easy, because she's been forced into a false form so he can pretend that it isn't Grell at all. Just the Ripper, packaged securely into a weak, trembling body and persuaded to do paperwork. It's obvious that this upsets her greatly, and equally obvious that she tries to hide that fact. He's away when she comes off probation, and when he returns he finds her pretending that nothing has changed, wearing the coat that she took alongside Red's life like a prize and wielding her bastardised scythe like an accessory. 

(But the coat softens and hides the flat lines of her body, and the chainsaw enables her to fight with a grace that he hasn't seen since the academy; for someone so alien she seems so much herself, cut clean from some of her more binding constraints.)

Things change. Grell becomes louder, more brash, more forward. She tries desperately to retain a sense of how they worked before, continue the surface affection bestowed through crooning flirtation and gliding touch, but without base or substance behind it it only comes across as pitiful and annoying. William brushes her off – and when that elicits no change whatsoever, he hits her. Sometimes hard and sometimes not; sometimes more than once; sometimes he regrets it. Sometimes it isn't personal, but for the most part it really, really is.

Grell learns not to flinch and bounces back from the blows with big liquid eyes and false pouts that melt into electric smiles if he meets her gaze. She doesn't try to force a heart to heart – perhaps recognises that William would not take kindly to what has become a further intrusion into his space – but keeps up a constant tirade of unwanted chatter that is off-putting enough anyway. She loses further interest in her work; becomes distracted and flighty, sometimes disappears for hours at a time only to return rather worse for wear and reeking of that demon. Maybe she's killing again. William doesn't know, and finds himself unable to guess. For the first time in eighty years he has no idea how she's feeling; no idea who she is.

All he knows is that he cannot stand it.


End file.
